Iconoclasm was a religious-cultural conflict within Byzantine society, over whether it was proper and acceptable to worship religious images. The dispute lasted for much of the 700s and 800s.

An edict from emperor Leo III the Isaurian in 726 brought the conflict to Italy. Pope Gregory II rejected the edict, and widespread riots in Byzantine Italy led to the killing of Exarch Paulus. These upheavals afflicted Venetia too, and they were part of the reason for the election of the first Venetian doge.

This excerpt from book VI of the Historia Langobardorum by Paul the Deacon tells the story from the perspective of the Lombards, who weren’t part of the dispute, but did see some opportunities in it.

Source: Historia Langobardorum (780s–790s) by Paul the Deacon, here in the translation by William Dudley Foulke from 1906.

Other sources are the Liber Pontificalis of Gregory II, and the Istoria Veneticorum by John the Deacon.

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Chapter VI.49

At this time¹ king Liutprand besieged Ravenna² and took Classis³ and destroyed it.

Then Paul the patrician⁴ sent his men out of Ravenna to kill the Pope,⁵ but as the Langobards fought against them in defense of the Pope and as the Spoletans⁶ resisted them on the Salarian bridge as well as the Tuscan Langobards from other places, the design of the Ravenna people came to nought.

At this time the emperor Leo⁷ burned the images of the saints placed in Constantinople and ordered the Roman pontiff to do the like if he wished to have the emperor’s favor, but the pontiff disdained to do this thing.

Also the whole of Ravenna and of Venetia resisted such commands with one mind, and if the pontiff had not prohibited them they would have attempted to set up an emperor over themselves.

Also king Liutprand attacked Feronianum (Fregnano), Mons Bellius, (Monteveglio), Buxeta (Busseto) and Persiceta (San Giovanni in Persiceto), Bononia (Bologna) and the Pentapolis and Auximun (Osimo), fortresses of Emilia.

And in like manner he then took possession of Sutrium (Sutri) but after some days it was again restored to the Romans.⁸

During the same time the emperor Leo went on to worse things so that he compelled all the inhabitants of Constantinople either by force or by blandishments, to give up the images of the Saviour and of his Holy Mother and of all the saints wherever they were, and he caused them to be burned by fire in the midst of the city.

And because many of the people hindered such a wickedness from being done, some of them were beheaded and others suffered mutilation in body.

As the patriarch Germanus⁹ did not consent to this error he was driven from his see and the presbyter Anastasius¹⁰ was ordained in his place.

Click to reveal the Latin text

Liber VI – xlix

Eoque tempore rex Liutprandus Ravennam obsedit, Classem invasit atque destruxit.

Tunc Paulus patricius ex Ravenna misit qui pontificem interemerent; sed Langobardis pro defensione pontificis repugnantibus, Spoletinis in Salario ponte et ex aliis partibus Langobardis Tuscis resistentibus, consilium Ravennantium dissipatum est.

Hac tempestate Leo imperator aput Constantinopolim sanctorum imagines depositas incendit Romanoque pontifici similia facere, si imperialem gratiam habere vellet, mandavit. Sed pontifex hoc facere contempsit.

Omnis quoque Ravennae exercitus vel Venetiarum talibus iussis uno animo restiterunt, et nisi eos pontifex prohibuisset, imperatorem super se constituere sunt adgressi.

Rex quoque Liutprand castra Emiliae, Feronianum et Montembellium, Buxeta et Persiceta, Bononiam et Pentapolim Auximumque invasit.

Pari quoque modo tunc et Sutrium pervasit. Sed post aliquot dies iterum Romanis redditum est.

Per idem tempus Leo Augustus ad peiora progressus est, ita ut conpelleret omnes Constantinopolim habitantes tam vi quam blandimentis, ut deponerent ubicumque haberentur imagines tam Salvatoris quamque eius sanctae genetricis vel omnium sanctorum, easque in medium civitatis incendio concremari fecit.

Et quia plerique ex populo tale scelus fieri praepediebant, aliquanti ex eis capite truncati, alii parte corporis multati sunt.

Cuius errori Germanus patriarcha non consentiens, a propria sede depulsus est, et eius in loco Anastasius presbiter ordinatus est.

Notes

1. Probably in 725 or 726. ↩︎
2. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 400s, of the Ostrogoth Kingdom in the early 500s, and seat of the Exarchate of Ravenna until 751. ↩︎
3. Classe (Latin: Classis) was a harbour city near Ravenna, and an important naval base in Antiquity. ↩︎
4. Paulus was the exarch of Ravenna from 723 until 726 or 727, when he was killed during the riots against iconoclasm. ↩︎
5. Pope Gregory II (669–731) was bishop of Rome from 715 to his death in 731. He took a firm stance against iconoclasm as imposed by emperor Leo III. ↩︎
6. The Lombard duchy of Spoleto in central Italy. ↩︎
7. Leo III the Isaurian (c. 685–741) was Byzantine emperor from 717. He is associated with the start of iconoclasm in 726. ↩︎
8. Sutri was taken from the Exarchate of Ravenna, but restored to the Pope in Rome, thus laying one of the first stones for the later Papal State. ↩︎
9. Germanus I of Constantinople (c.634–740) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 715 to 730, when he resigned over the issue of iconoclasm. ↩︎
10. Anastasius (†754) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 730 to his death in 754. He was a major figure in the First Iconoclasm. ↩︎

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